Sidelining the voice of reason and the concerns raised by the Opposition leaders, the Lok Sabha on July 25 passed the Triple Talaq Bill with 303:82 votes. The Bill makes the instant triple talaq a criminal act, with up to three years in jail for the erring husband.
The Opposition, especially MPs belonging to the Congress and Trinamool Congress (TMC) staged a walkout as a protest as the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019 was passed. During the discussion in Lok Sabha, Congress Kishanganj MP Mohammad Jawed opposed the Bill and argued for bringing “laws for separated women of all communities” and not just Muslims. “The Bill which has been tabled is another way to jail Muslims… I oppose this Bill and request the minister to send this Bill to the standing committee for review and make laws for separated women of all communities, not just Muslims,” he said in Lok Sabha.
Even the BJP ally, Janata Dal (United) opposed the triple talaq bill and walked out, underlining need to create public awareness on the issue with the help of Muslim community leaders. JD(U) MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh said the Bill would cause harm to the society. “The Bill will produce a different feeling in the society because no one wants that there should be differences in the relationship between wife and husband,” he averred.
The passage of this Bill is the bitter fruit of absolute power concentrated in one hand. How well Lord Acton, long back in 1887, famously said: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is true especially when power comes without having any sense of accountability before the people who vote the rulers to the seat of power and ultimately to the Lord before whom each and every person, no matter how powerful and mighty, will have to stand for final accountability.
Muslims have reiterated time and again that Talaq, not to say of instant talaq, is the most detestable of the permissible things in the eyes of Islamic Shari’ah. Islam permits this provision to pronounce talaq only to keep the social equilibrium going on in case some conflict between man and wife becomes too knotty to be solved. But there is no provision of finishing the marital relationship in one sitting. Despite this, if a Muslim man violates the Shari’ah provision of pronouncing talaq in three phases, it is up to the community leaders and Qazis to decide the case. By passing this Bill, the government is interfering in Islamic Shari’ah. The Bill needs to be reviewed with open mind so that the Muslim community may be saved from falling prey of majoritarian diktat.